


Resolve

by sunsetseas77



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Mention of Canon Violence, One Shot, Post Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:53:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9897842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetseas77/pseuds/sunsetseas77
Summary: One shot of Delphine and Cosima on the island rebuilding hope and their relationship. Cosima working through how events from Delphine’s disappearance through Cosima’s time on the island have affected her and how to move forward.





	

**Author's Note:**

> See end of work

As they lay together in the low light, Cosima’s senses picked out fuzzy lines, slowing pulses and breaths, diffuse warmth, and familiar scents. Blankets piled over the cot shrouded them from the pervasive cold as they were bare to each other underneath. 

After a little over a week of rest and treatment, she was noticeably stronger. Just a few nights ago, Delphine had finally accepted her almost nightly invitations to join her. Previous to that, the doctor's main focus had been that Cosima sleep with as little distraction and discomfort as possible in the narrow space. But Cosima’s improving health and persistence, and Delphine’s own desire to hold more than just Cosima’s hand as she fell asleep, had finally drawn her in. And on this night, they had taken another step to reconnect.

Facing each other, Cosima saw the steady rise and fall of Delphine's chest, felt a chin resting against her forehead, with her scalp tingling from warm exhalations flowing across it. Where her hand lay on her lover’s body, it spanned the space between entry and exit wound scars while her eyes remained focused on the point where sternum met right clavicle. Earlier she had skirted patches of rough skin, unwilling at that time to get caught up in the meanings she associated with them: commitment and sacrifice, selflessness and selfishness, failure and grief.

Lying there, she felt that a part of her being had been stitched back into her. But she also realized how she had been so completely caught by the violence that wove though their situation and that had torn it out of her in the first place. Her sisters, Beth, Sarah, Helena, MK, even Alison as she took up arms under Beth’s tutelage and prepared herself to fight, had been immersed in what she had largely avoided. But with what she had recently seen and experienced - deformed babies and euthanasia, Kendall’s death and incineration, the beginnings of self-mutilation with the bot, Rachel’s knife attack on her own mother - she had been pulled in fully. And on the body in front of her was visual and tactile evidence of another current in this maelstrom. This had been the first to flow directly at her, and it elicited the deepest emotions and questioning of herself because this one traced back more than any of the others to her own actions and words. To the fact that she believed she could have steered around it if she had had courage enough to follow her instincts and reveal her vulnerability. And further, by doing that, she could have prevented those courses she had subsequently followed from ever coming into existence. She could not shake the idea that she had been a root cause of harm.

Thinking on this, a slight tremor ran through her. In response, a hand covered her bridging digits while the other left its place on her hip to bend under and around and push against her back, bringing them closer together. Delphine’s head tipped down and hazel eyes made contact briefly but then moved upward again and a soft kiss was placed on her forehead.

Cosima felt her regret dissipate somewhat at this touch that communicated Delphine’s acceptance of and responsiveness to her. She inhaled, exhaled, and, feeling that she needed to express the shifts in her psyche during their time apart and where she now found herself, tried to do so. “I’m so grateful to be with you. And I don’t feel like I deserve it.” she whispered, then paused and swallowed. "I found the cure, but first there were so many unsuccessful attempts, and in the past months, in other ways, I have failed - Kendall, my sisters, Scott, you - and those failures have resulted in so much pain and they allowed hopelessness to creep in. And I don’t exactly know how to atone, how to make things right."

She knew that for her to find closure so she could rebuild with Delphine, she needed to take the step, to dare and address the darker, puckered skin that her fingers were slowly circling. ‘Like this - I failed and you suffered. Just please believe that I want to….that I want to make things right. I want to be honest with you and I hope that you will be able to just talk to me.”

She looked up at the doctor, now staring down at her. She seemed to be simply waiting, hearing Cosima out. “You knew, that night. Didn’t you?"

Physically Delphine didn't move, but Cosima saw the small signs of a mental and emotional shutdown beginning. But almost as quickly Delphine seemed to catch herself, blinking twice, and the openness of the gaze between them was back. She gave a slight nod. “Nealon made me an offer. I turned it down. He….. There was a struggle. I shot him." She paused, and in that break Cosima completely felt the weight of what Delphine had taken on for her. “I’d seen enough files. I knew how problems, whether real or perceived, were dealt with. I should not have come by that night but I just wanted to see you one last time.”

She hadn't realized a tear had fallen until Delphine brought up the back of a hand and lightly brushed it from her cheek. The commitment carried in those words, knowing Delphine had needed to see her, gave her strength to say aloud what she had gone over in her head so many times and had wanted to say for months, believing she might never have the chance to, "I shouldn’t have let you go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was afraid and conflicted, even while telling you that I understood. I should have been brave and I should never have let you leave.”

Delphine did not drop her gaze as she intertwined their fingers. "Cosima, we've been pulled so far into this situation and we have made mistakes. I came to this project when I was told there was an incurable illness to figure out, that I could help heal very sick patients, terminal patients. I haven’t cured a single patient yet, but I’ve shot and killed someone, and I’ve hurt others. I tried to work on your behalf, to protect you. This went deeper than I imagined it could and I couldn’t escape it. So I walked away from you. Somehow, I have you back now and I will not waste this second chance. I have to protect you. I can’t explain it, it’s just a truth woven into the strongest feeling I have ever experienced. But I will tell you what I can.” Delphine’s grip tightened. "We’re stronger together and we both want to make things right. We can get out of this. We will get out.” An eyebrow raised slightly, "Do you believe me?”

Cosima had never heard her sound so certain. She moved in closer to Delphine, kissing her lightly on the lips, “Yes, I believe you.” Her movement back was stopped by a hand against her cheek and lips re-connected with hers. Delphine maneuvered onto her back, pulling Cosima on top of her as the kiss intensified, and Cosima felt the guilt and violence she had been submerged in recede before a touch of love and what felt like forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> Delphine and Cosima obviously need to talk - about a lot of things. So I wrote a short talk between them about something that I’ve thought about and written little bits of off-and-on since the end of S4 – mainly Cosima’s shifting relationship with the violence of the show during S4 (and at the very end of S3) and, tangentially, how that possibly affected her views around Delphine. I’m not totally happy with it but I feel if I don't put my few OB story ideas out there before S5, I’ll abandon them. I haven’t written any type of fiction in over a decade so this was different.


End file.
